دياره زوانى كوردي قه ده غه يه له ريستورانته كانى هه ولير

I live in an apartment in one of the government buildings in Al Zakaria. This is supposed to be a high security area yet every morning I find advertising leaflets have been left outside my door. This makes me wonder about the building’s security!

This morning (29.9.2011) there were two leaflets on the doormat, both for Turkish restaurants in Erbil and as I looked at these brightly coloured leaflets (hereunder) I realised that Turkish, English and Arabic were used to describe each restaurant and their menus but not a single Kurdish phrase was used! Just what is going on here? These are restaurants in Erbil the Capital of Kurdistan. Surely there should be legislation for the Kurdish language to be used in Kurdistan and if there is no legislation then steps should be taken to remedy the situation.

What these restaurants are doing is targeting the people who speak these foreign languages. Taking a closer look at the leaflets I saw that on one was the phrase “We serve the elite.”لعشاق الفخامه واللتميز "Does that mean the elite speak Turkish, English or Arabic but not Kurdish?

When I return to my family in Wales, UK every road sign, official paperwork, job advertisement etc. is in Welsh and English with many shops, restaurants etc using both languages when Wales is part of a country whose official language is English.